Evolution of AWIPS: AWIPS II Migration and Vision for the Next Decade

AWIPS II Technology Infusion is a multiphase program. The first phase is the migration of the Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) and River Forecast Centers (RFCs) AWIPS capabilities into a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The migration is being conducted by Raytheon Technical Services Company (RTS) under the direction of the NWS Office of Science and Technology (OST). The development portion of this project was completed in December, 2011 and deployment to the NWS field offices is targeted to be complete September, 2015.

This paper provides a summary of the current status of the AWIPS II deployment at NWS field offices.

The long-term vision for AWIPS to support the Weather Ready Nation and increased emphasis on decision support services will be discussed. Major enhancements envisioned include improvements to AWIPS capabilities to enable forecasters to more effectively forecast, monitor and disseminate information to decision makers for high impact events. Additional efficiencies to the AWIPS infrastructure such as virtualization will also be discussed.